


all lovers go to heaven

by inwoo (arcane_hero), kbodnon



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Character Death, Kaiju, M/M, Monsters, Near Death Experiences, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcane_hero/pseuds/inwoo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbodnon/pseuds/kbodnon
Summary: Deidara loses a partner in the battle against Kaiju and no longer believes he can enter the Drift with someone else. The Chief of Staff believes otherwise.
Relationships: Deidara/Sasori (Naruto)
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

Deidara flinches in the middle of the night, waking up sharply. Oxygen seems to have been knocked out of his lungs with a sledgehammer, making him eagerly swallow the air in an attempt to regain its power. In the past two months, he has never been able to sleep without nightmares: deep shadows lie under his eyes, his face has ducked and acquired an unhealthy shade. Konan was concerned about his well-being and offered to try some sedatives because she saw that Deidara couldn't cope with the stress he was under, and talking could hardly help him. However, he was overreacting to any remark about his condition and trying to help, and eventually she stopped trying to fix it in any way. But she didn't stop looking after him, which pissed Deidara off even more, making him feel the pressure from outside.

Because he sees the eyes that look at him and feels a suffocating lump in his throat, overwhelmed with disgust – in these eyes there is only pity and senseless grief of outsiders, as if he was a beaten puppy from the gateway, who lost his mother. It is as if Deidara reads their thoughts and knows what is whispering behind his back, learning by heart all their stinking worrying words. He doesn't care what they say about him or how he feels – it's not that important and it will someday pass.

But nobody remembers Sasori, and it literally drives Deidara crazy.

During their last joint operation, Kaiju, which they had to deal with, broke through the cockpit; the blow came right to the right side, which was controlled by Sasori. He managed to shout something out to Deidara moments before the impact, but Deidara hadn't heard – he saw Kaiju piercing through Sasori’s chest and dumping his body in the night like a piece of unnecessary meat. He still remembers his stunned look and eyes full of disbelief and horror, and perhaps regret. Deidara doesn’t know for sure what exactly he could regret at such a moment, but guessed.

Deidara rubs his eyes and tries to push these thoughts away as far as possible, but, truth to be told, he has never managed to completely clear his head and stop thinking about it for at least a couple of minutes.

The air is not enough again.

By some miracle Deidar drove their Jager to the shore alone, and then lay unconscious at the headquarters hospital for about a week. Konan was the first person he saw after awakening, and she looked pretty worried. Maybe he screwed up some deadlines again and she came to report him. “You overslept, Deidara. Sasori would be angry again for being late,” she had to say something like that. But she didn't. Instead of that–

“Deidara, tell us how Sasori died.”

He tried for a long time to understand what she meant. The words slid in a viscous cold up his chest and neck, slipped under his skin like worms and crawled along his bones and veins, eventually squeezing his heart and poisoning his brain. Konan's last words continuously pounded through his ears like a resounding echo. sasoridiedsasoridiedsasoridiedsasoridied.

He wasn't dreaming.

This was the first and last time anyone ever mentioned Sasori to him. Everybody abruptly forgot about him, as if he never existed, as if it wasn't thanks to him that Jager's technology had become much more advanced in the last few years. It was as if he hadn't fought for their safety. Sasori talked about eternal life, designing Jeggers and practicing building very small domestic robots that still stand in their room. “If you leave something really important behind, you will not be forgotten. This is eternal life.” Deidara scrolls these words in his head, looking at a series of small mechanisms on the shelf. From that day on, he touched them only to wipe them from dust - he was afraid to break them accidentally. Sasori always said Deidara didn't know how to handle small parts carefully, squeezing them too hard or dropping them from his hands. And, frankly, he was right. He was always right. He was–

He was.

***

“You will have a new partner. His name is Obito.”

Deidara's heart freezes in panic, skipping a couple of beats, and then starts hysterically beating against the chest walls.

“I have already told you I won’t be a pilot anymore,” he cicks through his teeth in return, barely holding back so as not to hit Yahiko in the jaw. Konan stands next to him and tries to look assembled, but her fingers nervously squeeze the folder with documents, giving out internal excitement.

“It is not you who decides who will be the pilot and who will not, Deidara. People die in a war. We have too few rangers left to throw away the rest just like that.”

Deidara boils more and more with each word, clutching his fists to a crisp of cartilage. For them, Sasori was just a part of the system, an element that could be easily replaced. His sincere belief in the idea of immortality and the preservation of the memory of the creator through the design of mechanisms was so strong and unshakable, but in reality no one remembers him except Deidara. Bastards.

“He was just another soldier for you,” he roars in response to Yahiko, looking at him with a look full of hatred and contempt. Sasori's dreams are falling apart right before his eyes, and this is the worst pain he could ever experience.

“It’s not true, Deidara,” Konan says with a firm voice. “He meant as much to us as he meant to you. But Sasori isn't the only one who died in Kaiju's attack, and far from being the last. After all, it's our job to stop them.”

Sasori meant as much to no one as he meant to Deidara.

“I won't let the new one into my head,” Deidara throws before leaving the office, slamming the door behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Obito looks at Kakashi's lifeless body with horror, hoping that at least one muscle in his body will tremble, because he is alive, just fell asleep too tightly and does not want to respond to the voices calling him. His skin, it has always been so pale, right? _But his lips have never been so gray, and his muscles have never been so relaxed._ It rings in response with a resounding thunderbolt in his head, smashing the fragile walls of his skull to pieces.

“I am very sorry, Obito,” Minato says softly and puts his hand on Obito’ shoulder in a regretful gesture.

Obito draws in the thick air and looks at Minato with a confused look, full of disbelief, fear, and absolute despair. Gradually, the rolling awareness, along with panic, spreads somewhere inside and clogs in the throat and lungs, blocking the oxygen. Sizzling salt moisture fills the eyes, hot paths flowing down Obito’s cheeks and tearing from his chin to the cold floor. Obito slowly turns back to the gray face and feels the vacuum around it eating up all the sounds, leaving only a void and draught around the chest. Kakashi sleeps, but he will not wake up anymore.

Deidara presses his lips and freezes in confusion in Obito’s memories. He has been trying for two weeks to cope with his own fear of entering Drift with someone else but Sasori, to get over the idea he would still have to get along with a complete stranger. When he first saw his new partner, he was sure they wouldn't fit together – Obito looked much taller, stronger and older; however, all the test sparrings went well, as a matter of fact. Hidane was pleased because he was the one, who chose Obito as Deidara's new partner, because he was a member of the research team at the headquarters and could calculate the highest probability of neurosynchronization. Deidara, on the other hand, was convinced that he would not let anyone take Sasori's place.

But now they're connected to each other, and he's scared – he sees Obito, broken and drowning in despair in front of Kakashi's corpse, and he feels a panic approaching his throat: he looks and sees himself in it. And he has no idea what to do with it.

_“What is it?” Deidara asks, looking at Sasori's drawings on the table with curiosity._

_“Samehada. It was badly injured in the last attack, and I want to fix it and add something new. You also need to add more rocket launchers in your hand area,” Sasori answers as he checks the calculations._

_“This is all fun, of course, but Hidan says the next attack should be in two or three days,” Deidara frows. “If Samehada is out of order for a while, then instead of Itacha and Kisame, we should be out, but you sit here drawing all night long. Aren't you afraid of oversleeping?” he hums smugly._

_“It's your personal job, not mine,” Sasori sighs, but still puts the pencil aside, grinning at Deidara’s disgruntled indignation._

_“But don't do pouting. I can always wake you up,” Sasori says suddenly with a soft smile and, approaching the quiet Deidara, gently kisses him._

“I hope you aren’t wrong.”

“I'm not mistaken in my calculations, Kakuzu,” Hidan hisses irritably, without taking his eyes off Deidara and Obito. “They have a good level of drift compatibility, so everything should work out. Unless Deidara starts getting angry again, but that doesn't depend on–”

“Shut up, I did not ask for a lecture.”

Hidan wants to snap back, but he is interrupted by the voice of the system announcing the results of the Drift.

“The left hemisphere is calibrated. The right hemisphere is calibrated. Synchronization is set.”

***

“Deidara? We have to go to training.”

Deidara, who has been looking at Sasori's latest sketches before, comes to the door and leaves the room. It's still strange for him to be around Obito and not see him as a threat to Sasori's legacy, but as a partner with whom they found more than wires connected to their heads and a common Jager. After the Drift, he spent the rest of the day alone, hoping to understand his own thoughts and why he opened his mind. For the first time in a long time, Deidara felt that he was not alone in his experiences and could count on... understanding? After all, their pain turned out to be so similar. Perhaps, that is the reason.

“Look over there,” Obito suddenly stops in the middle of the dock, raising his head up. Deidara follows his gaze, which is directed at their Jager, which was fully designed by Sasori. Within a few months, Karasu had already managed to restore and reconstruct, based on his latest drawings. But Obito shows on the chest of the robot, where Red Scorpion is located – the emblem of Sasori, which is invariably present in every Jager he was involved in the construction of.

“Scorpio is on every drawing and mechanism Sasori has made, and I don't think it'll disappear from there or ever be forgotten. After all, this is no longer a local war, and it will be remembered. So will those thanks to whom we can fight at all.”

Deidara astonishesly looks at Obito, feeling the heart chaotically clogged with excitement in his chest – it's the first time he hears Sasori being mentioned by another person. Obito saw his emotions during the Drift, and the thoughts that had been eating him from within since that day, preventing him from breathing freely. But he was able to show that, in fact, eternal life exists – at least that which Sasori believed in. Obito bites his lip, immersed in his own thoughts: he wanted something tangible to be left of Kakashi, something that would remind him periodically. _He didn't just exist in your head._

“Now he exists in mine as well.” Deidara says, smiling for the first time in several months.


End file.
